DIY Upcycled Upholstered Bedhead

First, I want to say how excited I was to see so many of you show up for the first week of the Brag-Worthy Link Party! I wasn’t sure how it would go down because I know not everyone is a fan of link parties but you surprised me and I cannot wait to share your projects every week.

Today I have a fun little upcycle project I did for my daughters room.

Most of the time projects come out of well thought out plans, I can’t tell you where my ideas come from as my brain doesn’t always make sense, even to me! But I can say that I get a lot of inspiration from magazines, books, Pinterest and sometimes even from online shopping…..because if you can’t afford to buy it, you could always DIY it!

This project wasn’t a well thought out plan at all! It wasn’t even a plan! I had been looking for a way to create a bedhead for my daughters bedroom and I didn’t just want to do anything I had seen before so I tried to come up with a plan…..and failed. As I have mentioned before I am not a fan of copying people, there are still plenty of original ideas out there and I try my best to seek those out. So she has had no bedhead, which didn’t bother her at all, but her bed just looked unfinished to me. So in reality this project was more for me than her, but she still loves it! So I was online furniture shopping, as I do, looking for just the right pieces that I can make something special from when I came across an old mirror. I have HEAPS of old mirrors hanging around the sheds, not particularly pretty ones but I have them so I really don’t have a need for more. But this one was different, to me it looked like it could be a bedhead and it had the kind of details I look for in my furniture, I can’t describe it but it had character, or at least I knew I could give it some. So I checked the measurements and miracle of miracles it was a PERFECT fit….meant to be, what are the chances of that? I may have done a little dance when it I found it would work…..I also may or may not have high-fived myself. So I bought it and my non-plan plan was created. Inspiration can come from all sorts of places and once it struck I was a happy, happy woman. This is what I started with…….and yes it was this disgusting when I picked it up….apparently I am the only person who cleans second-hand goods before selling them.

So I set about transforming this into a bedhead. First I pulled the mirror out and painted the wood frame with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Pure White, I then waxed and distressed it. That was the easy bit. This mirror was made differently to most mirrors and I want you to learn from my mistake which set me back a few weeks as I had to rethink my plans. Usually mirrors sit inside the frame in a recess, so if this mirror was made like that I could just pop my upholstered section into that spot and secure it….easy-peazy, lemon squeezy! I didn’t really pay attention to how the mirror and frame were constructed until I started pulling it apart…….BIG MISTAKE! Because of this we had to do A LOT more work! This frame actually was made so that the mirror slid through the middle of it into a groove. Like I said, I did notice this when I pulled it apart and thought to myself…..”well I will just have to make sure the fabric, batting, foam and wood is skinny enough to fit inside that groove, no problem!” Ha! Yeah Right!

Anyway after I painted it and waxed I got onto creating the upholstered section which was really easy. Firstly I went shopping for fabric with my daughter and gave her only one limitation….it had to be black and white fabric…..besides that she could pick anything she wanted (let me tell you I was absolutely terrified of what we would come home with – this is the girl that wears a faux fur vest in the height of summer and uses eyeshadow to colour her eyebrows…..life with her is a colourful mess…not that I would change her for the world). She tried her hardest to find leopard print fabric…..I know leopard print is in and heaps of people really love it and I do see rooms I love that it works in and makes complete sense to me. BUT, personally I hate it, yes I know I am terrible, the interior design police will be all over me, but I just can’t like it, EVER! What can I say, my 9 year old is WAY cooler than me, tell me something I don’t know. Anyway, she couldn’t find any leopard print so she found this giraffe print looking stuff instead, apparently any animal will do in her books. So that is what I used. I used the fabric, a layer of batting and thin foam and stapled that to a MDF board, I then added 6 buttons just to give it a bit of something. I then slid that into the groove in the frame and got about halfway when it refused to go any further. So I did what I do when things don’t go to plan and I am under a personal deadline…….I cried. Yes, I am a big baby! A lot of crying happens in my shed, usually at the end of a day when a few things have gone wrong and I have held in my emotions all day and that one final thing breaks me. I’m a girl, it happens and eventually I get over it. Sometimes though in that moment you just have to cry, just to let it all go and move on. So I let it go and walked away for some thinking, I wasn’t willing to give up on it.

I talked to my hubby about it and we (as in he) came up with a plan to use this really cool cutting tool he has (it’s like a dremel, it has all these cutting bits) and we (as in he -I could have done it but sometimes you have to let them be the hero **wink-wink**) cut out a recess in the back where the upholstered panel could fit. It took a LONG time to cut but IT WORKED!!!! Major emotional breakdown avoided! You know it is a good day when you avoid an emotional hurtle. If you have not worked it out yet I am the emotional-the-world-is-ending-type-of-personality and my hubby is the I-can-fix-it-stop-freaking-out-you-crazy-woman-kind-of-guy, obviously we are made for each other!

I added some bits of wood to the bottom to make the bedhead the same height as the top of the mattress and we attached a D-Ring to the back so I could hook it into the wall and not have it fall on my daughter while she sleeps. And we had ourselves a giraffe-print-upcycled-mirror-bedhead……….how I envisioned it, all classy, sophisticated like, not loud at all! Okay, it maybe quite obnoxious but then it is a 9 year old girls room I am lucky this thing isn’t covered in Elsa images with the lyrics to “Let it Go!” handpainted on the walls……we are really not far of that!

The bedhead is HUGE! It is actually a lot bigger than I was expecting….I am not sure why? I did measure the thing. But it makes a great statement in her room and really yells at you when you enter which, lets be honest, is what you want in a bedhead. I keep having to chant “my daughter loves it, that is what matters”. I will show you the rest of the room shortly I have some curtains to hang and one more DIY which I think you will love….it is different and will be a neutral element in the room. Then you can see it in all it’s glory and I promise you it only gets louder from here….don’t forget we have the hot pink wardrobe in this room too!

You definitely cannot miss that a little girl lives here. I love her though and I want to create a beautiful room to inspire all her daydreams. I think when I was a kid I would have loved this room and the most important thing at the end of the day is that she loves it and it inspires her to sing “Let it Go” off key, at the top of her lungs almost everyday and the little girl inside me sings right along with her (off key as well because she inherited all my flaws).

First of all, I commend you for challenging yourself to come up with something unique and although you got thrown some curve balls, the headboard looks amazing! It’s a gorgeous custom piece and looks beautiful in your daughters room! Best of all, it has a great story to go along with it 🙂ReplyCancel